Zechariahs canticle

[judge]

As I raised this in another thread I thought I might as well re-post it in this new forum. The quote below is from paul Younan in this old thread.

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Strophe One

1. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
2. for He has looked favorably on his people
3. and He has redeemed them.


Strophe Two

1. He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David
2. as He spoke through the mouth of His holy prophets from of old
3. that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us


Strophe Three

1. Thus he has shown the mercy (Aramaic - "Khanan" - root of the name 'Yukhanan' (John)) promised to our ancestors
2. and has remembered (Hebrew - "Zachar", root of the name Zechariah) his holy covenant
3. the oath (Hebrew - "Shaba", root of the name Elishaba (Elizabeth)) that he swore to our ancestor Abraham


Strophe Four

1. to grant us that we
2. being rescued from the hands of our enemies
3. might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days


Strophe Five

1. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High
2. for you will go before the Lord
3. to prepare His ways


Strophe Six

1. to give knowledge of salvation to his people
2. by the forgiveness of their sins
3. by the tender mercy of our God


Strophe Seven

1. The dawn from on high will break upon us
2. to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death
3. to guide our feet into the way of peace


Notice that each stiche of strophe 3 contains an illusion to the name of the three protaganists (John, Zechariah and Elizabeth!)

[Mike Kar]

To all lovers of Y'shua's words and Aramaic New Testament. Peace and Grace to all who really desire to follow our Redeemer:

But I have a question regardiang Zecharia's canticle regarding Strophe 3. I am wondering if some of the more "heavy hitters" of Aramaic Primacy or those more affluent in Aramaic will be able to confirm for me if the root words of John, Zacheria and Elizabeth are really the same root words as mentioned in strophe 3 of Zecheria's canticle; that is, the same root words for "covenant," "mercy" and "oath"?? For a little while I thought that this "triple play" on words was not too big of a deal since, if the original Luke was written in Greek from what was verbally spoken in Aramaic then you would have some cases where Aramaic communication would show this kind of thing from time to time due to retrotranslation. But then, this position would really be somewhat hard pressed since Luke, a Greek writer, writing to a predominantly Greek audience would have to rely on some of his Greek readers to understand some Aramaic to pick up the word play. I don't think this scenerio would be too likely if I have not lost anybody by now.

I guess to get to my question can someone tell me how many triple play on words there are - especially in John and in Luke-Acts??? Is there some or quite a few?? HOw about double play on words?? Does this happen often in the NT Aramaic?? Too much of this would be, to me, too coincedental if the New Testament was originally penned in Greek.

Thank you folks.

Sincerely,

Mike Karoules

[Stephen Silver]

Shlama:
This is Paul Younan's original post, dated August 13th, 2001.
This is a remarkable find. The choice of words is inspired by the Holy Spirit and was given to Zechariah, the father of John the Immerser.

Paul Younan wrote:
Shlama Akhi Michael,
Zechariah's Canticle is a Semitic poem structured on Semitic rules of poetry, one of which is that poems should be broken out into equal strophes (grouping of verses) of equal stiches (verses).

Here is how Zechariah's Canticle breaks out:

Strophe One

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
for He has looked favorably on his people
and He has redeemed them.

Strophe Two

He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David
as He spoke through the mouth of His holy prophets from of old
that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us

Strophe Three

Thus he has shown the mercy (Aramaic - "Khanan" - root of the name 'Yukhanan' (John)) promised to our ancestors
and has remembered (Hebrew - "Zachar", root of the name Zechariah) his holy covenant
the oath (Hebrew - "Shaba", root of the name Elishaba (Elizabeth)) that he swore to our ancestor Abraham

Strophe Four

to grant us that we
being rescued from the hands of our enemies
might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days

Strophe Five

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High
for you will go before the Lord
to prepare His ways

Strophe Six

to give knowledge of salvation to his people
by the forgiveness of their sins
by the tender mercy of our God

Strophe Seven

The dawn from on high will break upon us
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death
to guide our feet into the way of peace

Notice that each stiche of strophe 3 contains an illusion to the name of the three protaganists (John, Zechariah and Elizabeth!)

Many thanks to Paul Younan and Andrew Roth for keeping this posted treasure in archive for over seven years. This is Aramaic Primacy and Semitic idiom in it's finest poetic form.

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Stephen Silver
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